Another Candidate For The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time?

March 30, 2024/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

I have written a long series of posts, now 32 in number, titled “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.” Go to this link if you want to read some or all of those posts. The fraud in question in those posts is the intentional alteration of pre-existing temperature (or, in one case, sea level) records to create a narrative of dangerous climate change that, without the alterations, lacks support in the raw data. In the most recent post in this series, number 32, I remarked, “No other scientific fraud in world history comes close to this one in scope or significance.”

The climate-data-alteration fraud is hugely significant because the altered data provide the fundamental support for the ongoing multi-trillion-dollar effort of the Left to transform the world energy system, and ultimately the entire world economy. As the least expensive and most reliable forms of energy production get restricted, billions of people stand to see their lives impoverished to the extent of tens of thousands of dollars per year each. Is it remotely possible for any other fraud to come anywhere close to this one in significance?

As unlikely as it may seem, now along comes a second plausible candidate for the title. This fraud goes by the common acronym of “LNT,” which stands for the “linear no threshold” hypothesis of causation of diseases, particularly cancer, from environmental factors. The LNT hypothesis is the basis for huge swaths of enormously costly regulation, probably the large majority of environmental regulatory cost outside the sphere of “climate.” In a March 7 article in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, a guy named Edward Calabrese makes the case that the LNT hypothesis has been advanced by means of intentional fraud since its inception nearly 100 years ago. The title of the article is “Cancer risk assessment, its wretched history and what it means for public health.”

The LNT hypothesis theorizes that if a chemical or phenomenon (e.g., radiation) is established as dangerous at some dosage, no matter how high, then it must also be dangerous at small dosages, no matter how tiny. That conclusion follows if the relation of dose to danger is linear, with no threshold below which the danger goes away. A tiny dose may have a tiny danger, but as long as the dose/danger relationship is linear without threshold, then there is no safe dose.

Calabrese’s article provides a thorough history of the origins of the LNT hypothesis, and how it was advanced and promoted by the suppression of definitive contrary evidence. By the 1970s the LNT hypothesis had the backing of the National Academy of Sciences, and had been adopted by the EPA as the basis for regulating hazardous chemicals and radiation. The EPA continues to use the LNT approach in its regulatory efforts today, even as evidence accumulates that it is wrong and has been based on fraud from the outset. 

And thus the LNT hypothesis is the fundamental reason why nuclear power plants are so expensive and difficult to build; why no long-term solution for storage of spent nuclear fuel can be found; why EPA constantly proposes new regulations lowering allowable levels of emissions of chemical substances like mercury or PCBs; why pesticides and herbicides like glyphosate become the subject of multi-billion dollar liability disasters; and so forth.

The LNT hypothesis may at first seem intuitively likely to be true. For example, it is established that large doses of radiation can induce mutations that can lead to cancer. So why then couldn’t a single item of radiation, like one alpha particle or a single gamma ray, induce the mutation that initiates the disease? But Calabrese points out that the LNT hypothesis presumes that mutations are rare, and that the body has no capacity to repair ongoing mutations. What research has revealed is that, far from being rare, mutations are extremely common; and the body has a large capacity to repair them. Thus a small external source of mutations, like background or low-dose radiation, is easily dealt with, and if anything helps to stimulate and exercise the body’s natural repair system. Only when an external force causes very extensive mutations exceeding the body’s capacity to repair — i.e., when some threshold is crossed — does the external force increase the risk of cancer or other disease. From Calabrese, page 16:

[T]he most dominating cause of evolution is our metabolism which induces millions of mutations per day in each cell, with 99.99999% being repaired each day. If our repair systems were not so exceptionally good, life would not exist. Our metabolism produces about 200 million times more genetic damage events per cell per day than that induced by background radiation. There is no contest between the two. What this means is that our body is our biggest enemy; it also means that it is also our best friend. The body’s great repair mechanisms evolved not to prevent and repair damage from background radiation but to fix the damage that our metabolism induces each day. Thus, the body’s repair systems are designed by nature to protect our bodies against ourselves, with background radiation being a very tiny and insignificant factor.

So how did the LNT hypothesis gain such enormous sway, and become the basis for extensive and destructive government decision-making for decades? Calabrese points out that, by contrast to the threshold hypothesis, the LNT hypothesis has the potential to induce great fear in the public, and thus to stimulate large opportunities for funding and career advancement:

[T]he experts got the radiation and chemical mutation idea wrong from the start but they convinced many that they were correct and created debilitating fear in the population at the same time. We also learned that one of the reasons that these great scientists created such fears was to advance their careers and to get a constant flow of government grant monies.

Calabrese’s article is long (18 two-column single-space pages) and goes into detail of the names involved, the particular pieces of evidence suppressed along the way, the manipulation of members of committees to get to desired outcomes, and so forth. It has a lengthy bibliography, including references to multiple prior articles of his own where he has been piecing together and building the story of the LNT fraud for years. If you are interested in this subject, I highly recommend this article.

Meanwhile, our government and its “experts” merrily go forth regulating on the basis of the LNT hypothesis, and imposing enormous costs on society for no benefit. From Calabrese’s Conclusion:

[The scientists who promoted the LNT hypothesis] were driven by ideological and self-serving professional biases that would lead to both falsifications of the research record and suppression of key scientific findings, all to establish the LNT model for hereditary and cancer risk assessment, replacing the threshold dose-response model. This troubling history has now been revealed in a long series of peer-reviewed publications by the author and summarized in a broad conversational manner in this Commentary. This troubling history remained hidden from regulatory agencies around the globe since its inception. These groups simply and uncritically accepted a flawed and corrupt history, assuming that it was accurate and reliable. Yet this path of historical ignorance led the US EPA, and other national regulatory agencies, to accept a dishonest foundation upon which to base and frame cancer risk assessment, terribly failing in their public service mission.

As of today, there is no evident retreat by EPA or other U.S. regulatory agencies from the LNT model. Fear sells, and they have no ability or incentive to self-correct.

Is this fraud even greater than the climate data alteration fraud? I still vote for that one as being the more significant. But reasonable people could disagree.

America May Never Build Another New Nuclear Power Plant Because Of This Fraud

by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris | Sep 7, 2021 | Feature 3, Politics, World

Deceptions at the highest levels of science have crippled one of America’s most important energy sources. To make matters worse, the same flawed science has prevented our country from properly exploiting critical medical technology. The power source crippled is, of course, nuclear power and the medical technology hampered is the use of radiation therapy to cure and prevent disease. To understand how this travesty came about, we need to first understand some basic nuclear radiation science.

The Linear No Threshold (LNT) rule, still upheld by the United States government, states that a single atom/ molecule/ radiated ion can cause cancer. The depth of this historic scandal has been revealed by Dr. Edward Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who has dedicated his research life in epidemiology to this cause.

Ultimately, the purpose of his work is to save thousands of lives, through more widespread use of radiation therapy, and to save billions of dollars needlessly trying to protect us from insignificant radiation that not only isn’t harmful, but in fact, is helpful.

Digging into science and medical archives, Calabrese came up with well-documented and referenced papers proving the fraud behind the LNT. It has been perpetuated by a long line of scientists trying to protect the reputation of the 1946 Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Hermann J. Muller, who lied about his research.

The historic paper which fired up Calabrese most recently was by Dr. Edward B. Lewis, published in Science May 17, 1957. Lewis was a young professor at the California Institute of Technology working in the area of Drosophila (fruit fly) genetics. He had no background or training in radiation, leukemia, epidemiology, or statistical modeling, yet the paper was accepted in Science and even supported by the issue’s editorial. The paper focused more on the Precautionary Principle than actual data that would support an LNT. It came under significant criticism from scientists in the field, yet it proved to transform the process of cancer risk assessment leading to the adoption of the LNT.

Calabrese’s March 2021 paper in Environmental Research (part 1 and part 2) describing how unsound LNT science became accepted, reads like a mystery thriller. Edward B. Lewis became the “stalking horse” for his department head and later chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Science “BEAR” Genetics Panel. BEAR stands for the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation. The BEAR Genetics Panel determines medical standards for radiation exposure.

The concept of a “stalking horse” comes from the world of politics where a junior politician acts to promote the interests of a senior politician who remains unseen in case the actions might damage him or her but nevertheless wants to promote a debate or challenge to an opponent.

Lewis became motivated to assess the leukemia and radiation issue after a July 1955 memo from Dr. George Beadle, his academic department chair of the biology department. They were asked to assess the effects of ionizing radiation within the emerging radiation fallout controversy following the 1945 atomic bomb blasts in Japan.

Lewis took the challenge and by November of 1955 had turned out a preliminary memo on the subject. Late that month the BEAR Panel had its first meeting from which they published a report recommending the LNT. Not long after, their report came under negative pressure as the results of a long-term study on 70,000 offspring of survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima who showed no radiation-related hereditary damage.

The panel simply ignored the study and decided to rely only on fruit fly studies for human risk assessment. If the reader is shocked at this you should be. The lack of ethics in science has grown to the detriment of all science. In this case, the ramifications have had deadly consequences.

Beadle, who became the Chair of the BEAR Panel, tried to suppress the growing LNT controversy among other geneticists after the 70,000 offspring study was released. He redirected the Panel’s focus to other issues. Helping Lewis get his final paper into Science magazine was something of a crowning achievement for getting the LNT theory across the existing goal line.

Lewis came under withering criticism for his flawed work appearing in Science. The BEAR panel remained silent, not coming to his rescue, as he had served their purpose in solidifying the establishment of the LNT. It was 1946 Nobel Prize winner Muller whose blatant lies described in our May 28, 2019, America Out Loud article, who is initially responsible for the whole world being duped by fraudulent science.

In an article published with co-authors, Dr. Nicholas D. Priest and Dr. Walter J. Kozumbo on 29 March online at Chemico-Biological Interactions, Calabrese and his colleagues described how their research further buries the Linear No-Threshold model for radiation exposure. As stated, current regulatory cancer risk assessment principles and practices assume the impacts of low doses of radiation, even orders of magnitude smaller, can be extrapolated in a linear fashion from the impacts of high doses of radiation. It assumes that there is no threshold below which no damage would occur. 

Common sense should tell us that this is likely wrong. After all, we know that dozens of liquids and solids that we eat or drink would be terrible in large quantities but harmless and, for some, good in small quantities. There are all kinds of trace elements like selenium that your body needs but is a poison in quantity. Obviously overeating and even drinking water can kill you. This was noted back in the 16th century by Swiss chemist Paracelsus who said The Dose Makes The Poison. Alice Ottoboni wrote a wonderful book by that title in 1984.

The study by Calabrese, Priest, and Kozumbo examined tumor latency which is the time-to-tumor following exposure to a carcinogen. Evidence for and against the concept of carcinogen-induced tumor latency is presented, discussed, and then examined with respect to its relationship to dose, dose rates, and the dose-related concepts of initiation of:

• tumor promotion, 
• tumor regression, and 
• tumor incidence and hormesis (the concept of reversing effects). 

They offer considerable experimental evidence that tumor latency is inversely related to the dose of carcinogens. Lower doses of carcinogens display a threshold below which the promotion and consequently the progression and growth of tumors are delayed and prevented in a normal life span. 

The damage the flawed LNT concept has wrought is clear. Besides its negative impact on nuclear medicine, it has allowed the government to triple the costs of nuclear power plants by requiring totally unnecessary duplications and triplication of safety protocols. Under the present circumstances, the US may never complete a new nuclear power plant even though two are under construction in Georgia. IT IS CLEARLY TIME TO ELIMINATE THE LINEAR NO-THRESHOLD MODEL FOR RADIATION EXPOSURE.

Winning the Nobel Prize Through Deception Crippled the Nuclear Industry

Podcast by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris | Sep 13, 2021 | Politics, World

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS

The research of Dr. Hermann Joseph Muller that resulted in him being awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1946 “for the discovery of the production of mutations by means of X-ray irradiation” was fraudulent. No such mutations occurred in Muller’s experiments. Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris are joined this week by Dr. Edward J. Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Calabrese demonstrates that Muller knew that his theories were on shaky ground even when he accepted the Nobel Prize. In what became one of the most destructive scandals of 20th-century science, Muller’s work led to the broad acceptance of the flawed “Linear No Threshold” model that crippled the nuclear power industry and curtailed nuclear medicine.

Hermann Joseph Muller – Nobel Foundation archive

Professor Edward J. Calabrese has researched extensively in the area of host factors affecting susceptibility to pollutants and is the author of over 900 papers in scholarly journals, as well as more than 10 books. Dr. Calabrese was awarded the 2009 Marie Curie Prize for his body of work on hormesis, which pertains to the study of benefits of exposure to phenomena such as radiation or mercury. He was the recipient of the International Society for Cell Communication and Signaling-Springer award for 2010. In 2013, Professor Calabrese was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and in 2014 he was awarded the Petr Beckmann Award from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness.

Join Professor Calabrese, Jay, and Tom in this week’s episode of The Other Side of the Story to learn how an unscrupulous, aggressive scientist won a Nobel Prize with fraudulent research and how the world has suffered ever since. 

References relevant to this show:

• Edward J. Calabrese Webpage at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

• EDWARD J. CALABRESE, PH.D. CURRICULUM VITAE

• “America May Never Build Another New Nuclear Power Plant Because Of This Fraud,” by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris, September 7, 2021, America Out Loud

• “LNT and cancer risk assessment: Its flawed foundations part 1: Radiation and leukemia: Where LNT began,” by Edward J. Calabrese, review paper in Environmental Research

• “LNT and cancer risk assessment: Its flawed foundations part 2: How unsound LNT science became accepted,” by Edward J. Calabrese, review paper in Environmental Research

• “NUCLEAR IS THE ONLY VIABLE OPTION FOR ENERGY TRANSITION,” ICSC-Canada Climate Change Minute, June 4, 2021 

 (Editor's Note:  You may wish to view my

EPA Appears To Be Backing Off From The Discredited Linear No Threshold Theory

 
 

August 5, 2019 By Michael D. Shaw @ Health News Digest

This is good news, but requires a bit of explanation. The Linear No Threshold Theory, aka the Linear Non-Threshold Theory, aka the Linear No Threshold Model (abbreviated LNT), was originally developed regarding exposure to ionizing radiation. LNT holds that additional cancer risk is linear with respect to the absorbed dose, and becomes zero only at zero dose. Thus, there is no threshold below which there is no effect. This model is used as the basis of most nuclear-related legislation around the world, and in some chemical risk assessment.

LNT was controversial from its introduction, and became even more so once it was applied to chemical exposures. After all, if the dose makes the poison, and the dose is diluted down to one molecule, how harmful could it be? Intuitively, there must be a threshold. If not, then no pharmaceutical drug could ever be safe. Or as my toxicologist friend Dr. Robert Golden once put it, “If there is no safe level, then why bother doing risk assessments at all?”

There is much literature extant disputing LNT, including this extensive review article from 2018, which concludes:

Objectively evaluating and incorporating the latest scientific evidence on LDDR (low dose, low-dose rate) dose-response relationships for application to the regulatory and policy-making process for risk assessment purposes will (1) ensure science remains the foundation for its decision making, (2) reduce the unnecessary burden of costly cleanups, (3) provide a much needed platform to educate the public on the risks or benefits from LDDR radiation exposures, and (4) harmonize the agency’s policies with those recognized by the rest of the radiation scientific community. A continued resistance to conducting a comprehensive review of the latest science regarding LNT-based policies will only diminish the agency’s [EPA’s] credibility and influence to protect human health and the environment.

The notion of LNT is based on the work of Nobel Laureate Hermann Muller, who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery that X-rays induce genetic mutations. In his Nobel Lecture (December 12, 1946), Muller declared that there is “no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold dose.”

However, according to the extensive work of toxicologist Edward Calabrese, it is highly probable that at the very time Muller gave this lecture, he already knew that his contention was untrue. More than that, Muller actively conspired to suppress contrary findings for years.

Which brings us to recent activity of EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB). On July 15th, the Board posted a report entitled “Consultation on Updating EPA Guidelines for Carcinogen and Non-Cancer Risk Assessment.” The report first states the charge questions, which cover aspects of EPA’s risk assessment guidelines, with frequent reference to dose-response issues. The next two sections of the report include individual comments from members of the SAB on these questions.

The comments were conveyed as such because EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler specifically requested individual advice from the board members, rather than seeking consensus recommendations.

Member Kimberly White, with the American Chemistry Council, noted that, “There is considerable empirical evidence of non-linearity in dose-response modeling and the Agency should evaluate its reliance and application of default models that limit the consideration of alternative approaches. Decades of peer reviewed published literature provide multiple examples of observed chemical specific thresholds for both non-cancer and cancer endpoints.”

Member Dennis Paustenbach, an independent consultant, agrees: “It is clear to me, although not everyone would agree, that the linearized multi-stage model is unable to account for the dozens of compensatory mechanism that clearly exist at low doses which render virtually all chemicals to be harmless at those levels. Dozens of papers of the past 15-20 years that have attempted to study such doses in whole animal studies seem to clearly show this to be true.”

Member Brant Ulsh, Principal Health Physicist with M.H. Chew & Associates cites numerous references criticizing LNT, which have heretofore been ignored by the EPA…

“In spite of these cautions and caveats, the Agency continues to claim that there is consensus for their application of LNT to estimate risks from low radiation doses and set cleanup standards. In fact, there is wide disagreement on application of the LNT model among expert advisory bodies, professional societies, and individual scientists.”

“The Agency’s assertion that assuming linearity is protective of public health is presented without evidence and is in fact contradicted by the experiences of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents. In those situations, public health responses based on the LNT model of radiation risks were retrospectively found to have done more harm than good.”

There is little doubt that EPA should abandon Linear No Threshold.

Is Fear of Radiation Bad for Your Health?

Fraudulent science behind radiation regulations

Radiation scientist documents fraud in Nobel award for “Linear No Threshold” toxicity model

Paul Driessen and Dr. Jay Lehr

The 2018 elections underscore the need for bipartisan efforts to address scientific frauds that promote and justify ever more stringent regulations – often to the great detriment of people, patients and society.

In fact, world-renowned toxicology expert Dr. Edward Calabrese has now discovered and documented fraud behind the award of the 1946 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The prize was given to Hermann Muller for his claimed discovery that even small or infinitesimal amounts of radiation can cause cancer. It is the ridiculous assertion that there is no threshold below which any kind of radiation is safe.

By contrast, toxicologists have long used actual experiments to establish a dose response model and determine what exposure to various kinds of radiation (or chemicals) actually pose cancer (or other risks) risks for humans.

Low doses are generally benign, they have found. In many cases, they even help animals and humans ward off disease, safeguard bodies against certain chemicals or diseases, or actually cure cancer and other diseases. Higher doses can cause problems, and therefore must be calculated and regulated.

For example, via a process called hormesis, low levels of radon exposure can protect against cancer; 80 milligrams of aspirin are thought to prevent strokes; and trace amounts of selenium help our bodies counteract the harmful effects of mercury in our blood.

However, despite this evidence, government agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have followed Muller’s straight-line Linear No Threshold (LNT) model for decades. Besides giving rise to what many say are overly restrictive and even unnecessary regulations, the LNT model has actually harmed patients, by greatly precluding the use of radiation in curative medicine.

But now University of Massachusetts at Amherst health sciences professor Calabrese has documented LNT fraud through an exhaustive review of communications that began July 22, 1927 in the journal Science, where Muller first put forth the claim that any amount of radiation causes cancer. Calabrese lays out his findings in an October 2018 paper in the Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine journal. an

Calabrese has spent years investigating Muller’s claims. His story unfolds like a detective novel with all the characters who played intentional or inadvertent roles in the deception indicted by their written and published communications 90 years ago. There are 34 documents in all.

They show that, without any supporting scientific data or peer review, Muller presented his claims at the Fifth International Genetics Congress in September 1927, where he described how he had supposedly induced hundreds of gene mutations by bombarding common fruit flies (Drosophila) with x-rays.

Muller’s closest friend and colleague, William Rice Institute biologist Edgar Altenburg, told Muller his experiment had not caused any mutations. Instead, they created changes by eliminating pieces of the flies’ chromosomes, enabling the creation of inheritable traits or progeny, but no mutations whatever.

As early as 1929, in a paper in the Journal of Genetics, geneticist Barbara McClintock demonstrated that Altenburg’s criticism of Muller were correct. She went on to win the 1983 Nobel Prize for her other work in genetics.

However, Muller repeatedly brushed off his friends’ advisories about his error and McClintock’s proof that his hypothesis was incorrect. The recriminations may have led to Muller’s failed suicide attempt in 1932. His suicide note was directed to Altenburg, rather than his family, and Altenburg never challenged Muller again. It appears that loyalty to a close friend may have overwhelmed his responsibility to science, medicine and humanity.

The scientific community was enthralled by Muller’s claims and the publicity it received. Scientists worldwide quickly and uncritically came to believe that Muller actually had produced gene mutations and was advancing one of the most significant questions confronting biology. His lack of data never slowed down the wave of excitement.

Muller resumed his duplicity quite strongly throughout the years leading to his Nobel Prize lecture on December 12, 1946. There he deliberately deceived the audience by arguing that there was no possibility of a threshold or harmless dose response for radiation-induced mutations.

Calabrese documents that Muller had seen data that supported exactly that conclusion. It came from two scientists, Ernst Caspari and Curt Stern, who worked at the University of Rochester and released their findings one month prior to Muller’s Nobel Lecture. Muller ignored their findings and promoted his deception to support his long-held commitment to his Linear No Threshold claim, which is commonly referred to as LNT dose response for mutation and cancer risks.

Muller’s story is one of unbridled ambition, self-serving manipulation, a scientific community that at many levels failed to demand accountability, and a Nobel Prize committee that inadequately evaluated the findings which lead to the award. The implications of these actions have been incredibly damaging.

They resulted in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences adopting the LNT in 1956 for all regulatory programs relating to radiation. This convention was subsequently adopted worldwide.

The deceptions facilitated a continuing impact on society that continues to the present day, without any acknowledgement or change by the scientific community or government regulatory agencies.

Incredibly, modern nucleotide analysis methods have repeated Muller’s experiments with x-ray bombardments – and shown conclusively that Muller’s alterations to fruit flies resulted in modest to extraordinarily large chromosomal deletions, rather than point mutations.

In addition, the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster was exacerbated by a commitment to the LNT, which persuaded the Japanese government to mandate that people be moved unnecessarily miles from their homes. That led to an estimated 1,600 premature elderly deaths due to stress.

Not a single radiation illness or death occurred, because there was never enough radiation lasting long enough in the prevailing winds to cause either. But the Fukushima fear lasted for years afterward.

Most amazing and distressing of all, they have led to the rejection of low-dose radiation (LDR) treatments. Underscoring how devastating this can be for patients, Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto gave himself total-body LDR treatments for his systemic stage IV colon cancer. Thus far, he is a 20+ year survivor!

In his landmark paper, Calabrese says, regardless of Muller’s deceit, “the most significant criticisms and concerns should be directed to the scientific and regulatory communities, such as U.S. EPA, that have uncritically adopted and sustained Muller’s findings as the foundation for cancer risk assessment.”

They have permitted this process to be dominated by ideological perspectives that must end if healthcare is to be optimized by using low dose radiation to arrest or cure cancers, and prevent needless deaths.

The reasons behind this travesty of science and medicine are simple. First, prominent scientists do not like to be found incorrect on major issues. Second, an activist anti-nuclear population views all radiation as evil, whether that view is rational, irrational or actually harmful to people’s health and welfare.

Hopefully, a “refreshed” House of Representatives and stronger Republican Senate will team up with the White House to correct an egregious wrong that has negatively impacted the health of cancer victims and others who most need advanced radiation treatments that have too long been rendered unavailable.

Any LNT changes will likely be resisted by environmental and health activists and others committed to the status quo. However, Congress, EPA, the Food and Drug Administration, and other regulatory bodies worldwide need to reexamine and revise existing LNT rules. Countless lives hang in the balance.

Paul Driessen is policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of articles and books on natural resource issues. Dr. Jay Lehr is science director for The Heartland Institute Arlington Heights, Illinois.